


A Message to You, Dear

by Liadt



Category: Rising Damp (TV)
Genre: First Time, M/M, worries about sexuality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-20
Updated: 2019-10-20
Packaged: 2020-11-27 17:46:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20952389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liadt/pseuds/Liadt
Summary: Alan finds Rigsby has written a love letter and decides he needs his assistance.





	A Message to You, Dear

Rigsby had gone up to the attic room because he was certain he’d heard some ominous creaking noises coming from there. Alan being supposedly alone made the creaking even more suspicious. After a thorough search, he found no hidden girls and gained worries about the state of the roof joists, instead. When he turned to leave, a piece of paper fell out of his pocket. Before he’d rushed up stairs, he’d been penning his thoughts down. Alan swooped to pick it up and couldn’t help reading aloud the first line, “To the one I love.” Rigsby whipped round and made a grab for the paper, but Alan, using his minor height advantage, held it out of arm’s reach.

“Hey, that’s private,” said Rigsby. He made another grab, which turned into a chase around the furniture. To an outside observer it would have been hard to work out who was chasing who around the cramped room. A similar thought struck Rigsby and he took advantage of the narrow space by making a sharp one hundred and eighty degree turn. Alan halted, arms wind-milling to stop himself running into Rigsby. 

“Aha!” cried Rigsby.

Alan sprang backwards and landed on an armchair. “Aha!” he said, mocking Rigsby’s triumphant tone and lifted the piece of paper like a trophy. Rigsby charged and attempted to fling him out of the chair. The armchair fell back against the wardrobe. Alan rested his shoulder blades against the wardrobe door feeling smug. His position looked insecure but the opposite was true. Despite all his tramping up and down stairs, Rigsby was surprisingly unfit and exhausted by the exercise slid to the floor, a crumpled heap in defeat. 

“Now you’ve proved you’re a hurdling champion, can I have my letter back?” said Rigsby, in between breaths. 

“If it’s so important for you to chase me, it must be something special,” said Alan. “If it’s a love letter, you should let someone give it a once over to check it’s not naff before sending.”

“I don’t want the aid of someone whose knowledge of matters of the heart are confined to which valve the blood comes in and which one it’s pumped out of.”

Alan ignored him and continued to read. “'Every time I see you I want to say how I feel, but I can’t and I’m writing this to you.' Aw, that’s a good start, Ruth’ll like it.”

Rigsby didn’t correct him. He’d hoped he could get Alan out of his mind by writing his thoughts down; it wasn’t a letter he was planning to send. Girly hair or not, Rigsby was sure Alan wasn’t interested in men. 

“'I’m entranced by your gently curling locks,' that’s not half bad.”

“I feel so much better now the great literary critic has passed judgement.”

“I can write love letters.”

“Don’t remind me,” said Rigsby and took a hanky out of his pocket to wipe his face.

“It had the desired effect, didn’t it?”

“Desired? Desired! Yes, on an irate father! If it wasn’t for one of his burly sons tripping over Vienna and knocking them to the floor like skittles, we'd still be in traction now, instead of them. Don’t talk to me about your love letters.”

“I do write a lot, you know.”

“Notes on which pill does what doesn’t make you the new Shakespeare.”

“Neither are you: ‘You’re quite tall, I wish I could climb you like a wall.’ That’s terrible, cross that out.”

“Yes, I have overstated the height,” admitted Rigsby. “Now give it here!”

“No chance, you need my help.”

“Me? Your help, with your zero points score?” scoffed Rigsby.

Alan lifted his nose into the air to make it known he was above such jibes about his love life. “At least I can tell writing, ‘with your sensuous eyes and mouth, your nose is nothing to write home about,’ isn’t going to win your true love’s heart. First rule of dating: dish out compliments, not criticism.”

“It’s more a collection of thoughts than a letter. Why not give it here and I’ll burn it.” Rigsby held out a plaintive hand.

“Don’t be discouraged. A few tweaks and Ruth’ll be putty in your hands. This is an odd one: ‘I’d like to take down your particulars, but you’re not a copper and sometimes I doubt you’ll trouble any of the emergency services, quite frankly.’ Why? Because Ruth’s heart isn’t a flame for you, firemen won't come to put her out? ‘Oh, A--, don’t you see the effect you’re having on me?’ A? What happened to Ruth? Why didn’t you say it wasn’t to her?”

“Why bother when you’ve been ignoring my requests to hand the thing over? As for Miss Jones, I had to face facts, she’ll never be interested in me that way. Besides, my head has been turned by someone else. Can you stop reading: it’s not helping.”

“I can’t help you write a first class letter if I half read it. Who is A anyway?”

“A? Er, Alanna, yes, that’s her name, Alanna!” Alanna? He might as well have told Alan he was the subject of his writing. He didn’t appear to have twigged. It was perhaps as well, he could hardly tell him the truth when Alan was telling him his lines were hopeless; it made him feel hopeless too. Maybe the feeling of wanting to crawl under a rock would cure him. No wonder homosexuality was classified as a mental illness: it was doing his head in. First Miss Jones, then Alan, he must have a screw loose. Treatment from the men in white coats to fancy someone obtainable, would be more useful, as exhausting and frightening as it was to be attracted to a man. He couldn’t think of anyone who would fit the bill of being obtainable, though. Perhaps, he was doomed to be on his own.

“Alanna? Not a name you hear often. ‘I don’t know what to do, you make my heart turn blue, can’t you give me a pill? Not to turn my water green, but to lift my heart my heart from my heels.’” Alan furrowed his brow: wheels were turning. “This is a strange letter. Why mention the pills I gave you?”

“If you’d taken those pills you wouldn’t have forgotten them.”

Alan remained silent as he read the rest of the letter. He jumped off the armchair. “You can have the letter back: your writing skills are beyond help.”

Rigsby snatched the letter back and shoved it into his trouser pocket with a sarcastic, “Thank you.” Feeling humiliated, he turned to storm out of the room, but Alan continued to talk, “I can tell you A feels the same way about you.”

“You know an Alanna? I have a feeling she's the wrong one,” he said, dully, as he fumbled with the doorknob (he’d have to tighten it later, if he could be fussed, which he couldn’t). Alan couldn’t mean himself, it must be someone on the street he didn’t know - unrequited love was his lot. 

Alan caught at the back of his cardigan. “Don’t you want to stay and take down A’s particulars right now?”

Rigsby turned around slowly and Alan took him in his arms. Rigsby was bewildered, but pleased at the unexpected turn of events and his smile showed it. “It wasn’t a very good line, was it?”

“Works for me,” said Alan, leaning in for a kiss. “I hope you kiss better than you write.”


End file.
